


if i die young

by blondeslytherin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Car Accidents, Character Death, Graphic Description, M/M, Unhappy Ending, Wakes & Funerals, dealing with death, please read at your own discretion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 15:36:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18853975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondeslytherin/pseuds/blondeslytherin
Summary: Things change in an instant.





	if i die young

It’s raining as he stands there, mud ruining his favorite shoes, but he doesn’t care. The umbrella isn’t doing its job and everyone around him refuses to look him in the eye, not that they could anyway.

They’re lowering him into the ground now, and all Lance can think with a deadened mind is, _why him_?

~~~

He’s on his couch, waiting for the confirmation text that the reservation has been set. They’re celebrating tonight, all of them, because Keith is finally 21 and old enough to drink. He’s the youngest of them, bumped up an age group and grade because of his October birthday.

It’s 8:17 at night when he gets a text.

It’s not from the restaurant.

~~~

The rain pours harder as one of the pallbearers hands him a rose. They didn’t manage to fully dethorn this one, and one finds its way into the flesh of his palm, cutting in deep and causing a small trickle of red to run down his wrist.

He clutches the rose as if somehow, his blood will bring him back. As if somehow, if he wills it hard enough, he’ll be here, standing with him, instead of _there._

“Dearly beloved…” the priest begins.

The first tear of today slips down Lance’s cheek.

~~~  
It’s Krolia who tells him.

He’s shaking too badly to drive; he’s too damn _scared_ to even get in a car right now. He’s sitting on his couch and the restaurant confirms their reservation and Lance throws his phone so hard it shatters against the wall.

~~~

The priest talks about living life in the name of God and Lance thinks it’s a load of bullshit, remembering all the times Keith complained about the church in the government and the religious household he was raised in.

“Everything happens for a reason.”

_No. No it fucking doesn’t._

Lance looks to the sky, tips his umbrella back so the rain hits him full in the face.

_If you exist God, what’s your reason for this? What grand old thing is supposed to happen because you supposedly called him back?_

_What’s the goddamn reason?  
_~~~

Kellogg Mill was a twisty, windy road, ever since it had been constructed. Lance loved driving through there because in the summertime, the sun would shine through the leaves as they crested over hills and sped around corners.

Keith hated that road, always had. He claimed it was too dangerous, that the speed limit was too high and goddamnit Lance, speeding through here is an accident waiting to happen.

Keith wasn’t speeding.

~~~  
Krolia speaks next, stepping forward and dropping her rose in.

“If you ever asked Keith, he wouldn’t tell you that I was a great mother. But I loved him the best I could.”

_So did I._

~~~

It was Keith’s very statements that foreshadowed something so painful Lance doesn’t think he’s ever known pain until now.

“They should widen this road. Make it a little safer, so that someone doesn’t roll off into a ditch.”

“Yeah, like they’re gonna do that. They’ve been trying for months now to expand around here, and barely any progress is going to be made. No one cares enough about this road anyway.”

Keith hummed. “Can you slow down a bit? This curve is really sharp.”  
~~~  
They’re burying Keith in the family plot, right next to his dad. Krolia is shaking like a leaf, and Lance thinks this is the first time he’s ever seen her show emotion. Not when she returned to Keith’s life three years ago; not when her only son graduated high school and got a full ride to college; not even when Lance told her that he wanted to marry Keith one day.

But when her son dies.

Now. Now she bothers to care.

_I was the one here for him when you weren’t._

~~~

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

His car rolled twice, struck by a construction vehicle driven by a drunk driver.

He lived.

Keith didn’t.

~~~

Krolia looks to Lance when she’s done speaking, and the tears are steady now. He can’t breathe, he can’t think, he can’t feel.

It feels like he’s dying, but he knows he’s not.

The universe isn’t kind enough to take him too.

~~~  
Lance didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see Keith’s body twisted, didn’t want to see his neck at that unnatural angle or the scream frozen on his face.

But if he didn’t, his mind wouldn’t accept that Keith was gone. Just like that.

“Oh god…”

~~~

“I loved him.”

_No._

“I still love him. I have from the moment I met him, and I think I’ll love him until the day I join him.”

~~~

In an instant, Keith’s car was struck by a man who had too much to drink driving 28 ton vehicle.

In an instant, Keith was dead.

And the drunk driver lived.

Lance doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive the universe for that.

~~~

He tries to say some more, but the longer he looks at the casket, closed at Krolia’s discretion, the more he can’t. The more he thinks about just how goddamn unfair this is, how Keith had his whole life ahead of him, how he was supposed to be here.

How he was driving to meet Lance when it happened.

Lance drops the rose and steps back.

Everyone has told him that it wasn’t his fault, that the driver shouldn’t have been drinking and that road has always been a disaster. That there was no way for Lance to know or to cause this.

That it wasn’t his fault.

_But I’m still alive._

~~~

Prayers go out on social media, posts of Keith with hearts around his face are on everyone’s page. People claiming to know him, claiming he touched their lives and Lance can’t believe the audacity.

He’s not the only one grieving; he knows that.

But no one knew him like Lance did.

~~~

Hunk says something, as do others, but Lance isn’t listening. He can’t listen, not above the roaring in his head.

It doesn’t feel real.

~~~  
There’s a suit on his bed when he walks in, black and ready. A red bow tie rests upon it, and Lance picks it up gingerly, cradling it in his palm.

This was what Keith wore to formal.

When Lance told him that he loved him for the first time.

Lance gets dressed for the funeral.

~~~

_Why him?_

~~~

Lance walks away from the casket, away from the people calling out to him, away from it all.

_Why him?_

~~~  
**Keith:** be there soon babe, love you

 

**Author's Note:**

> at 8:17 tonight, i got a text informing me that a close friend of mine had died in a car accident. 
> 
> i'm not coping well. 
> 
> please don't drink and drive. please. she was 17, and today is her birthday. if you are religious, i ask that you think of her and pray for her even if you don't know her, or know her name.


End file.
